Are. The mix is still working, and in fact the monkeys have bred a few times. The gorillas and roloways are also mixed with a group of meerkats, and a pair of red-crested turaco.
Thank you for your reply @ShonenJake13 ! That is great to hear that has been a successful mix and that these guenons have been breeding, the enclosure looks massive so I'm sure this really helps matters. I was curious about whether this mix had been attempted before as I know it has been done with other guenons like De Brazza's and had mixed results. Seems to be a biogeographically accurate mix too...up until the meerkats.
The meerkats have an important practical function though: they keep the number of rodents under control!
I see, well no further comment from me regarding meerkats Anyway, it is really good to hear that the Roloway's are doing well, they are a beautiful species indeed.
I’ve seen gorillas mixed with quite a few species of guenon; roloway, diana, albogularis, neglectus, petaurista, ascanius, lhoesti, nictitans and patas. Out of these the only ones I’ve ever seen that didn’t work out in the long term were nictitans and albogularis.
Was talking about this with @Pertinax on my thread about Jersey Zoo and apparently most mixed species exhibits with guenons and gorillas can go pear shaped after a while and end in injury or death for the monkeys (though apparently not so bad with mangabey). Personally, I dont know enough about these sort of interspecies dynamics between gorillas and monkeys in mixed species exhibits to comment with any authority but it is an interest concept and where applied I would hope it works out well for both species. I wonder why these mixes don't work out so well with spot nosed and Skyes' monkey, is there something in particular about these species that promote agonistic behaviour from gorillas ?
I should also add that success or failure may also depend to an extent on the enclosure design. Climbing opportunities the gorillas can't reach i.e. plenty of tall,thin branches/trees or ropes may help lightweight species like guenons keep safe, and so create a more successful mix than in other situations.
That is interesting to consider, I think those type of design elements are probably what has made the Ouwehands mixed species exhibit so successful for the Roloway's.
I believe its a covered enclosure? That would give the monkeys far more opportunity to use the height and possible escape routes/safe areas. Though Howletts unsuccessful mixings were in covered enclosures but the gorillas could access all of it.
Yes, it does look to be covered and in addition it appears to be immense in size with plenty of climbing opportunities that wouldn't support the weight of a gorilla but would for a guenon. This would definitely seem to corroborate what you say about the designs of these sorts of enclosures being more successful for guenon and gorilla mixed species exhibits.
Creating enough space where monkeys can live above gorillas is a good idea. In fact, optimally it would be to create separate spaces - ground and thicker branches for gorillas and thinner branches for guenons above, separated by few meters. However, in many zoos smaller monkeys were more aggressive towards gorillas than vice versa, and finally were injured or killed by a gorilla.
I would be really interested in reading about specific cases where the agonistic behaviour began from the monkeys towards the gorillas, could you give some examples of this ?
One example I remember were Brazza guenons in Taronga, which even followed the gorillas to their indoor space. But I am afraid I must direct you to Google. There were several articles about such mixed exhibits.
I'll have a look and see if I can find anything on this, very interesting. It is really hard to believe that De Brazza's monkeys would be as aggressive as stalking gorillas into their indoor quarters. I can well imagine Diana monkeys doing that though as they seem to be far more aggressive / territorial.
Another thing to add to the Rhenen exhibit is that only male gorillas are kept. Might have an influence aswell. Idk, just figured to mention. But yea, the exhibit is indeed rather large, and also very high. A lot of people i know hate it but if you look past the looks, it is actually pretty good imo, which might have also been a result of the breeding succes
The sex of Fan Xing is now known! The six month old giant panda cub is a male! Geslacht Fan Xing is bekend! - Ouwehands Dierenpark
I would have thought that the chances of aggression between the two species would be more elevated in an all male group of gorillas but yes that is an interesting point. I dont think it is the best looking enclosure and I'm not fond of the addition of the meerkats (but recognise that they are good pest control) but that is just my own aesthetics and irrelevant to the discussion really.
A Female Clouded leopard has been sent to Tierpark Berlin to become part of the Berlin breeding-programm. At Ouwehands now still 1 male and 2 females are living.
The remaining individuals are the breeding stock. Both females gave birth within months of one another previously, no mean feat.
